An American Travesty
Subtitle: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending (Adolescent Development and Legal Policy)
Contributors: Francis A. Allen (Foreword)
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; University of Chicago Press
Published: June 30, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9780226983578
Subjects: Criminal law; Juvenile offenders; Social Science; Sociology; USA; Criminal Law - General; Criminology; Other Miscellaneous Crimes; Social Science / Criminology; Children's Studies; Juvenile courts; Legal status, laws, etc; Legal status, laws, etc.; Sex crimes; Teenage sex offenders; United States
First sentence: This chapter presents three case studies illustrating the extraordinary recent history of legal responses to problematic sexual activities of children and teens in the United States.
Description: "An American Travesty is the first scholarly book in half a century to analyze the justice system's response to sexual misconduct by children and adolescents in the United States. Franklin E. Zimring discusses the "American travesty" noted in the title - our society's failure to consider the developmental status of adolescent sex offenders. Too often, he argues, the American legal system ignores age and developmental status when adjudicating young sexual offenders, in many cases responding as they would to an adult." "After surveying the facts and outlining the additional information needed for rational policy, this book proposes a series of reforms in juvenile and criminal courts as well as sex offender registration laws. An American Travesty's compelling argument will inform policymakers, lawyers, criminologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and others trying to address the problem of the young sexual offender."--BOOK JACKET.